


never was yours

by Yellow



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, dubcon (the ritual), more alike!!! than they think!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 01:03:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8601094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow/pseuds/Yellow
Summary: “What do you think, Morrigan?”                               “I do not think he is a threat,” she says, glaring down at his bedroom eyes. He wants to die, she almost adds, but it is enough that Zevran knows she knows.-morrigan and zevran, in snapshots





	

**Author's Note:**

> hear me out on this pairing

                Pathetic.

                The assassin goes down with less fight than even the mage, and Morrigan wills Cousland to just finish the job. But that is not him, so he nudges the assassin awake and lets his charm flow over him, unmoved.

                Zevran is his name, he says. To his credit, he doesn’t seem like he expects this to work. Morrigan has seen men ready for death, by her hand or ice or fangs, and she recognizes the look in his eyes. He looks up at her and smiles, shrugs a little. She scoffs and wrinkles her nose.

                Alistair is protesting vehemently to keeping the assassin with them, and Sten silently agrees behind them, but Cousland does not seem convinced.

                “What do you think, Morrigan?”               

                “I do not think he is a threat,” she says, glaring down at his bedroom eyes. He wants to die, she almost adds, but it is enough that Zevran knows she knows.

                Cousland hums.

                “We need all the help we can get.” And he stretches out a hand, ignoring Alistair’s yelps and Sten’s quiet disapproval. They start back to camp, Zevran loping along behind Cousland, who seems to have no fear of him. Alistair walks beside Cousland, casting uneasy backwards glances, and almost looks relieved to see Morrigan trailing the assassin. Sten walks in front of them all, scanning for exterior threats.

                Zevran leans back to leer at Morrigan, but she stares ahead and does not meet his eyes.

                “Are you to be my jailer, then?” He trails his eyes over her body. “Worse fates.” He pauses, waiting for a reaction, but Morrigan gives him none. “Ah, the silent type. I’m sure I could make you _scream-_ ” and Cousland’s hand is on Zevran’s shoulder.

                “Don’t make me regret bringing you along,” he says with a smile, and Zevran is silent. Morrigan refuses to acknowledge the exchange with anything but a nod of thanks. She still catches Zevran shooting her small, more genuine looks of curiosity the whole walk back.

 

* * *

 

                She regrets speaking up.

                He seems to realize that she is not easily swayed, despite her words a few days before. He is always testing, prodding. Not just her, but especially her. Leliana was taken in by his stories of Antiva, and Wynne seems to think he needs a mother. Morrigan would never admit it, but his skilled deflection of her questions is hilarious, and at least once she’s let a small huff of amusement escape her lips. She can feel him flick his gaze to her, but she never looks.

                Sten and Alistair are both distrustful in their own ways, and that leaves her and Cousland, who lets on nothing, inviting Zevran on missions with his wide, guileless smile.

                She respects his skills. He’s useful, more than she would have predicted given their first encounter, and she wonders where his death wish has gone.

                Maybe he is simply waiting, and watching. Maybe he has ulterior motives, and is biding his time.

                She would know the feeling.

***

                They are walking. Zevran is chatting with Leliana, animated, and she giggles until he crosses a line, at which he is angrily rebuffed. Morrigan pretends not to notice.

                Cousland falls into step beside her, and she stares straight ahead, not looking over at his handsome face, the eyebrow she knows is raised.

                “Zevran fits right in,” he says.

                “So says you.”

                Cousland laughs. “We’re all a bunch of misfits, anyways. What’s one more, if he’s good with a dagger?”

                Morrigan’s mouth falls open. She shuts it with a click.

                “Do you have no regard for your safety?” she demands.

                Cousland laughs again, and claps her on the back. She tries not to find it endearing.

                “That’s what I have you for,” he says, fond. He watches Leliana yell at Zevran, some ways up the path. “And Leliana.”

 

***

                Cousland comes to visit her campfire, and she is bold enough to ask for what she wants. His face goes serious, and that alone makes her want to flee. The heavy and careful way he turns her down has her itching to transform into a bird and go flying for a few hours, but when he leaves to his tent she does something better. Something that will hurt. She wants to hurt.

                She enters Zevran’s tent and makes a proposal.

                He hesitates.

                “Are you..are you sure?”

                “Yes, yes,” she says, impatient, and removes her top.

                Zevran watches, but doesn’t move until she straddles him.

                “You’re sure?” he asks again, quiet.

                She kisses him in response, and things go quickly after that.

                The biggest surprise is she doesn’t need to fake her orgasm at all. Zevran is gentle with her, gentle and passionate. He looks her in the eyes.

                Afterwards, she leaves his tent with not so much as a goodbye. She doesn’t hurt. She doesn’t hurt at all.

                Morrigan turns into a bird and vanishes into the trees. She doesn’t sleep that night.

 

* * *

                It becomes a habit.

                Zevran is an easy way to relieve stress. She pays no mind to the looks she gets entering his tent, not Leliana’s tittering or Wynne’s clucking tongue.

                She ignores the way he kisses her. She ignores the way he strokes his hands over her shoulders, her back. She does not stay the night.

* * *

               

                There is searing pain in her back, and she falls to the ground. She hears shouting but she cannot tell who it is, and she struggles to pull herself up. Her lungs scream- she cannot seem to take in any air.

                Morrigan hears the wet sound of someone gasping for breath through a cut throat, but it is hard to concentrate, to look for an attacker- she cannot breathe, and with every twitch, her back screams in pain.

                There are hands on her shoulders, pushing her down. She chokes off a scream when her back hits the ground.

                “Forgive me,” someone says, hands holding her to the ground. She relaxes momentarily, and then there is a knife sliding between her ribs, and she jerks in pain, but she’s able to breathe again. She drags in breaths, too weary to protest much when the hands carefully turn her to lie on her stomach.

                She catches a glimpse of unfamiliar boots in her periphery and lunges forward, throwing out a hand. When she collapses, the boots are frozen solid to the ground, and the hands leave her back, after a moment of hesitation. The wet thud of a knife up to its hilt in flesh follows.

                Morrigan breathes, trying to listen for the sounds of battle.

                The hands flit back to her shoulders and one stays there. Another presses into what must be knife wounds in her back.

                “Warden!”

                Then she is being lifted onto Cousland’s broad shoulders. Zevran’s face wavers before her vision, and she can hear Leliana come running over just before she passes out.

* * *

 

                She wakes to candlelight and Wynne shooing someone out of a tent.

                Morrigan shifts, feels her back stretch, and groans.

                “I’ll let you know,” Wynne is saying, but at Morrigan’s groan she looks over her shoulder.

                “Well, she’s awake now, if you still don’t trust me that she’s alive.”

                A pause, then, “No, no, I will go.”             

                Wynne reenters the tent, chuckling.

                “Zevran has stuck to your side like a mabari,” she says, leaning down to check Morrigan’s back. Morrigan attempts to raise herself to her elbows and feels that pulling again. She lowers herself with another groan.

                “I wouldn’t try that again for a few hours at least,” Wynne says, clever hands at work. “I stopped the bleeding and fixed your lung, but those knives went deep. We’ll have to wait for my mana to replenish a bit more before I try to entirely close your wounds.”     

                “Rogue?” Morrigan asks.

                “Yes. It seems you need better armor. Or someone guarding your back,” she says. “There.” Wynne wipes her hands on her robes and stands up. “I’ll take the bandages off soon. For now, rest.”           

                Wynne leans down to press a hand to Morrigan’s forehead, and if she feels the magical nudge towards sleep, she’s too tired to care.

 

 * * *

 

                Morrigan wakes up slowly. Her eyes focus and she sees Zevran sitting cross-legged in the corner, idly flipping his daggers.

                “Fear not, I am here at Wynne’s request,” he said, watching his daggers fly.

                “She gave you a job, to placate you, like a child.” She does not add that even in this state she could kill him on the spot. She thinks that’s implied.

                Zevran grins, sharp, and catches the daggers in one hand. “Do not think I am not aware, my dear woman.” Morrigan stretches and finds that the awful pulling at her back is gone. She reaches a hand back and finds only smooth skin.

                “Wynne healed the last of your injuries an hour ago.”

                “Good. Then we must be going,” she says, and starts to sit up. Zevran pushes her gently back to the ground, smiling.

                “No. You still require rest. Wynne’s orders.”

                Morrigan sinks back to the bedroll, feeling exhaustion wash over her, as readily as her annoyance at her exhaustion. She scowls, and Zevran laughs.

                “We will be going soon enough,” and Morrigan riles at the mock-soothing tone. “You may not be frightened of Wynne, but I most certainly am.” Zevran moves closer to her to extinguish the candles, and after a long moment, his hands brush errant hair off her forehead.

                Zevran has no magic, yet somehow the play of his fingers at her temples lulls her as readily as Wynne’s. Morrigan slips easily into a dreamless sleep.

 

* * *

                “Love is weakness,” she gasps, as he kisses down her neck.

                “Yes,” he agrees, and nuzzles the point where her neck meets her shoulder. Morrigan shivers.

                “Then why do I-”

                “You know what I would like to do,” he says, conversational. “I would like to ravish you until you cannot speak.”

                She comes up to meet his lips and thanks him, and wishes they could speak with words instead of bodies.

                She stays the night, and fears she is saying too much.

 

* * *

                “I did not expect to meet your mother in such a manner,” he said, voice light but eyes heavy on her face. “She did not seem very pleased to see me.”

                Morrigan snorts in spite of herself.

                Zevran leans down to kiss her neck. “She turned into a dragon. I stabbed her.”

                Morrigan knows this is what happened. She appreciates that Zevran tells her plainly, unlike Cousland, who simply told her, “Flemeth is dead,” with an uncharacteristic hardness to his manner. Still, she cannot help the pang in her gut at the death of her mother, no matter what sort of mother she had been, and she turns away from Zevran. He lets her go, a warm weight at her back in the bed.

                If she sheds a few tears, for the mother she had and the mother she wanted, she is glad when he does not comment. She scrubs at her eyes, cursing herself-the past is the past, and Flemeth is not dead, anyway. Only stalled.

                She still does not object when Zevran’s arm lands casually on her shoulder, pulling her closer.

 

* * *

               

                She knows he is in his room, wondering where she is. Perhaps idly tossing his daggers. She knows he is wondering whether they have finally called each other’s bluff and played into the pretense of their casual, no-strings relationship- but the longer she thinks on Zevran, the harder it is to purr at Cousland.

                He’s watching her with a furrow in his brow, and she argues her case, slinking back and forth in front of the fire.

                He does not want Alistair to die. He does not want to die.

He does not want to fuck her. She does not want to fuck him. Maybe she had, but that dream died somewhere between a growing respect for the Antivan Crow’s skills and his silent presence at her back while she mourned her mother.

                These facts add to one conclusion: he will take the blow, for Alistair wants this even less than Cousland, and neither will particularly like it. But it will be done.

                “Does Zevran know?”

                Morrigan takes this as a strike to the chest.

                “This does not concern him.”

                Cousland raises an eyebrow, says nothing. Then, “Is this what you want?”

                Morrigan purses her lips.

                “It is not what I want,” she admits. “It is my duty.”

                 “Morrigan-”

                She has made a mistake. She misspoke.

                “Because it is my duty, it is what I want,” she says. “Besides, you will not sacrifice yourself nor Alistair for your or my petty desires.”

                Cousland looks stricken. “If-if it were for anything less than life or death,” he starts, and she gives him a half smile.

                “I know.” And she is on him, and he is winding his arms around her, half-dazed, but they are too bulky, too large, and she thinks she might suffocate.

                She does not, and if his lips are too thin, and his body is so large she drowns in its shadow, then that is fine- tonight, she is meant to be consumed, become the vessel for a vessel of the Gods themselves.

                If she thinks about lithe fingers catching daggers, and mouths a spot on Cousland’s neck that for him, is no more erotic than any other-neither of them say a word.

 

* * *

               

                She returns to what has become their room late.

                He is sitting on the edge of the bed, and she knows he knows. He is not tossing his daggers, she notes. He is polishing his leather boots, the scent heavy and sweet between them.

                “Were you to want for another partner,” he says, “you could have asked.”

                Morrigan wants to laugh. This is so much more than the simplicity of asking for another, but then, she thinks, speaking was never simple for them at all.

                “There is a ritual.”

                Zevran looks up at her, gaze level. His hands pause on the boot.

                She has no care for Grey Warden secrets. “When felling the Archdemon, a Grey Warden must die. Unless there is another to take the soul of the Old God.”

                Every muscle in his body seems to tense at once, but his gaze does not falter. “And you are to take the blow?”

                Morrigan almost laughs, but there is no humor in the room, just the scent of polish.

                “No,” she whispers. “A child, conceived on the eve of battle, with a Grey Warden….”

                Zevran stares at her, then his eyes slip shut. “You are with child?”

                Morrigan does not respond, just lets her eyes close. She is tired, and he knows. She startles when she opens her eyes and sees him inches in front of her, watching.

                “I can smell Cousland on your skin.”

                Her words come out like a slap, clawing up her throat. “I did not take his bed for pleasure, but for duty. Surely you know of duty all too well.” It is still the closest she will ever come to “I love you.”

                He leans forward and kisses her.

                She is tired.

                His lips are just the right size and his thumb strokes her neck, and when he pulls away she cannot smell Cousland anymore, just polish and Zevran’s Antivan soap. He takes her hand and pulls her into bed and lets her turn away.

                “The child,” he says. She does not respond. “Will it have a father?” Something in his voice is longing, and she is uncomfortable and upset at the same time.

                “No.”

                He settles back into the bed silently, and, almost as an afterthought, drops a kiss on her shoulder. Then it is silent and dark and Morrigan closes her eyes.

 

* * *

 

                The Warden is not dead.

                She rests a hand on her stomach. She pretends she can feel the God, roiling inside her, trying to reconcile its nature to the embryo beginning to form.

                She needs to leave.

                Cousland is distracted. Alistair is hugging him so tight it looks like they both will burst, and Morrigan once again feels a lurch in her stomach at the thought at leaving. Her eyes trace Cousland’s face, his eyes squeezed shut. Her first friend.

All the more reason to do it quickly.

                She turns around and Zevran is waiting, casually and adeptly blocking her path.

                “Let me pass.”

                “Is that it, then?” He has the audacity to sound hurt, as if she is not embarking on the most difficult journey she has ever undertaken. “Not even a goodbye?”            

                “You have known I was leaving.”

                “Yes,” he says.

                How else to convince him? Why can’t he simply-

                “Did we truly have nothing?”

                “Love is a weakness,” she says, and her voice is strange, but she feels the truth to her core. This, this is why, she thinks, looking past him to Cousland and then flicking her gaze back to his amber eyes. It makes it too hard to leave.

                “It is,” he agrees, and kisses her, gently, thoroughly. His hands skim over her stomach and up her back, and for a brief moment of weakness Morrigan wants to ask him to come.

                She does the next best-the next worst- thing. She reaches into her bag, rummages.

                She slips a cold golden ring onto his finger.

                He holds up his hand and watches it glint in the light.

                “It’s magical.” Her voice still does not sound quite right. “If I ever should have need of you-”

                Zevran takes her hands, kisses the back of one. Smiles. “I am forever at your service.”

                Then he walks past her. He is also no stranger to leaving people behind.

                Morrigan swallows, then looks down at her hand. He slipped her something.

                It’s a gold earring. It’s pretty, and delicate. It’s the first gift she’s ever received. Morrigan rubs it between her fingers, then tucks it into her bag before running into the Tower, fleeing from the approaching voices.

               

* * *

 

                She does not know how many months it is. Morrigan tells time by her growing stomach these days, retreating to the woods for weeks at a time.

                She always comes back to market eventually, a different town every time. She collects the news with other little necessities. The Hero of Ferelden has asked the boon of his familial lands returned, and has retreated to Amaranthine to begin rebuilding Warden numbers. As for the others, she does not hear. Except-

                Once, or twice, she has heard of a revolution in Antiva. The Crows are being overthrown, killed one after another, by a mysterious renegade. She touches the ring on her own hand, and hopes he feels her irritation over the distance.

                How he has the time to track her and plant information on her trail, she does not know. Perhaps he still is in contact with Leliana.

                Perhaps it is time for her to move farther, and faster.

                Still.

                She cannot quite suppress the urge to turn to the shopkeep who just regaled her with a tale of a “devilishly handsome shadow, killing the Crows in their beds,” and to press a message into his hand. To tell him to send it back up the chain.

                She puts a hand on her stomach. The child is growing. _Her_ child is growing, on days when she’s feeling sentimental, which is more and more often.

                It is time to leave Ferelden. She nods at the man, then starts on her way.

 

 

                _I do not wish to be tracked._

 _When the Crows are dead,_ **I** _may find_ **you**.

                - _M_          

 

**Author's Note:**

> find /me/ at zevraanarainai.tumblr.com!!!


End file.
